"Yes, yes you're oppressed, too": intersectionality of identities

Earlier in the blog I posted a rant about verbs and adjectives, where I expressed my frustration with the words “female”  and “male” being labelled as nouns. I suggested that “adjective” was probably a more apt term for explaining bodies and identities. I refused (and still do) to consider myself a female (n.) because it ignores all the other components of what/who I am. I will consent to being described as female (adj.). In this post and others the concept of intersectionality was introduced. Because it is one of my favourite things to write/read/study about and because I found a text book from a couple of years ago today, I get to write about intersectionality again. The book is from a queer theory class I took in second year and is (creatively) titled A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory (Nikki Sullivan). Below I use the author’s example of “gayness” and “blackness” to write more about intersectionality.

Intersectionality does not just apply to identity, but to experience as well. In the chapter titled “Queer Race”, the author explores the terms “gay black” and “black gay”, in which the former term is the identity that one primarily identifies. These are not her terms; they are real social categories groups of people have created. They are presented as two groups in opposition to each other; race and sexuality as a binary. Traditionally and stereotypically “gayness” and “blackness” have often stood as independent, contrasting qualities. Effeminate gayness contrasts the masculinity supposedly inherent to blackness, and the two identities battle each other out for dominance. As a result, a feuded binary of “black gay” and “gay black” is created.

Are you scratching your head, wondering why identities have to duke each other out for dominant representation in the individual when they are simultaneously all their identities at once? And are you thinking that competing identities would logically lead to competing oppressions? If so, awesome- we’re on the same page. Arguing over “who is more oppressed” is just... illogical and dare I say childish? Playing the "Oppression Olympics" never results in a productive response to oppression and injustice; it assumes that people of both identities do not exist. Gayness and blackness exist together, simultaneously; they interact and intertwine with other identities with every experience. Racism doesn’t exist in a vacuum outside of homophobia, sexism or classism. Everything is overlapping into one huge mess of identities, experiences and oppressions. Identities do not merely add to each other, rather they create unique experiences by occurring all at once.

Couple of quotes

“It’s truly sad to read of a high school generation too detached to date, too indifferent for romance, too distant for commitment... You can’t help but hope that today’s teenagers will come to understand that to rob sex of romance, to divorce it from emotion, is to deny themselves exactly what makes it special” Scot Lehigh, quoted by Diane E. Levin in “So Sexy, So Soon: The Sexualization of Childhood” (in Childhood Lost, ed. Olfman)

I tried to like her article about kids and sex. Really, I did. But I found myself getting too frustrated with it to produce anything relevant to this blog and project. It’s like I was trying to cram a psychology discourse into a women’s studies class and expecting it to work, but it doesn’t work like that. One of these things was not like the other. And since the last while has been spent writing more in a notebook than online or even on my computer, little bits of information that may have otherwise gone unnoticed start to appear.  Compare the above quote with what Califia has to say:

“Why is sex supposed to be invisible? Other pleasurable acts or acts of communication are routinely performed in public- eating, drinking, talking, watching movies, writing letters, studying or teaching, telling jokes and laughing, appreciating fine art. Is sex so deadly, hateful, and horrific that we can’t permit it to be seen? Are naked bodies so ugly or so shameful that we can’t survive the sight of bare tushes or genitals without withering away?” (Califia, 1982 “Public Sex”)

First, Lehigh sounds like a naive little wiener of a man, who is in denial regarding the population’s attitudes surrounding sexual activity. Does he honestly think we’re taught that sex has emotion, romance and commitment? No, fuck no! Even in school, the version of sex education received is often (in my experience) “this is how babies are made. This goes there, and then this happens. Then you might get pregnant.   Or a disease, so be careful; here’s a condom.”  What about this says romance, love or even respect for another person? If you’re lucky, they tell you what’s happening biologically and how one might keep themselves away from disease and infection.

Where was I when sex was supposedly romantic? When high school students had sex for anything but physical pleasure, money, to get what they wanted, boredom, and guilt or because they liked a person or just “felt like it”? I don’t ever remember being around when “sex divorced emotion”; it was never there to begin with. The two might have correlated weakly at best, but they were never causal or deeply involved. When the fuck was sex special?! And who the fuck has the right to tell me that it is inherently so, just because they felt some emotional attachment to the chick they fucked?

Sex is not inherently anything. That’s really the only conclusion I have been able to come to by reading everything I have and writing some of it down. Sex is an ever changing category, and evolves through the discourses we use and perspectives we look through. It can be a biological function, psychological at times, sometimes reproductive, and is regulated through protectionist, social constructionist, and to contrast, essentialist languages and ways of understanding. Sex is never “only sex”; it is not just that term that makes babies. It is far beyond heteronormative, heterosexual sex.  It can involve anyone and everyone, and may mean something different to each individual. It’s impossible to define in a few sentences or apparently in a blog over the course of four months.  Asking “what does the author mean by sex” is a question that must be asked time and time again if we want to have a chance at understanding their work and insights.  The category itself must always be questioned and challenged if we hope to create an understanding of what sex “means”. As with any concept, it is culturally, historically and contextually specific; ever changing with multiple intersections and layers to its definition. 

I put these two quotes side by side in an attempt to question even further what I thought I understood about sex. I’ve told you what I initially thought of Levin, and previous posts give an indication of where I’m going to go with Califia’s thoughts. He continues to send my academic heart aflutter, and this quote really helps to solidify some of the things I’ve learned/have come to know about “sex”. Sex is contextually specific and is by no means synonymous with “intimacy” or closeness, as it is often presented. Califia challenges the sex=romance=intimacy line of thinking when he lists acts that are intimate by are not “sexual” by any typical definition.  

This isn’t a good-bye to the blog, even if it’s starting to sound that way. I have a lot more work to do for this semester’s worth and hope to continue this next semester. I’m not trying to draw conclusions on something that will never end; not providing answers to a question that wasn’t asked. I guess I’m just trying to regurgitate and interpret a little of what I’ve been reading. Hardly unique, but originality slipped through the cracks when I decided to talk about sex. 

I’m saying goodnight for now, because I want to get this posted soon. I’m coming back to this after leaving for a couple hours, and kind of just want to hit the “publish post” button. Things all of a sudden got really heavy in my head and anything I say risks being tainted by these emotions and thoughts.  Night, blog.

Public and private sex

I’m still working my way through Public Sex: The culture of radical sex by Califia, and in the end I’m not going to have written a response to everything that he’s said in his book. Obviously this would be too much, unless I neglect the other books on my shelf to read and respond to only Califia. But it would also be impossible because within every essay in this book there are tiny trinkets of wonder. Even if it’s just one or two paragraphs, my mind is fascinated by the thoughts he produces. In 1982 he published a piece called “Public Sex”, where he continues to feed insight into my understanding of the topic.

He compares and contrasts the public and private concepts of sex.  Although they are often presented as public “versus” private, the terms intertwine and interact in an attempt to give (most) people freedom and choice.  Public and private “rights” are not often the dichotomy they may be portrayed as being. “Public and private” expectations refer to the right to privacy people expect within their own home or pseudo private places, the expectation to public acknowledgement of one’s existence and identities. In short, we want to be who we are and have it acknowledged without banishment and prejudice from society, but we also want to reserve the right to have privacy regarding any part of our life (including but not limited to our sex lives).

Of course, rights to privacy and public acknowledgement are not granted to children or youth. And they are especially not granted to children/youth in intergenerational relationships. Most often, Califia argues, intergenerational relationships or sexual interactions are met with protectionist discourses. Rather than liberate all people from the confines of expectation, the liberation discourse protects only the privileged adults. Children and youth are still regarded as a group that needs protection and guidance, but in a limited sense; they are not to experience sexuality and sex. They are merely told of its existence and why it is bad for them.

Califia argues that sex is not inherently damaging or detrimental to children. When children are denied information and purposely kept ignorant on matters of sex and sexuality, they are harmed by the lack of knowledge that older generations failed to provide.  Under a guise of “protection” and “danger”, youth are told sex is inherently harmful and none of their business. This routine of shame and protection harms youth’s future understanding of sexuality and sex. If as children they are taught that sex is dirty, shameful and wrong, as adults their perception of sex will be altered. No child is born thinking that sex is inherently wrong- it is a message brought to them by parents, educators, society and even sexual liberation movements. The liberation movement that tells us our sex/sexualities deserve both the right to privacy and public acknowledgement is the same one that says “but not for children”; denying them the right to “explore” their sex and sexuality and receive informative, truthful knowledge regarding sex and sexuality.

Though Califia does not go into detail as to the harm that a lack of correct information brings to youth, I remain certain that he is correct. Knowledge is power- the more we know, the more apt we become in making beneficial and productive choices. For example, youth learning that condoms are not effective and even dangerous are misinformed and are at risk of STIs, HIV/AIDS and unwanted pregnancies. This is most often the group of youth that are taught abstinence only sex education in their school systems; an approach that has proven time and time again to be ineffective.  Abstinence only education is notorious for laying guilt trips, shaming sexualities and telling children to “just say no”. Presenting youth accurate information about sex and sexuality does not promote any kind of sex. But it does give youth the same power as informed adults. They are able to learn and understand the risks that come with their decisions if they are told the truth.  Youth, as well as adults should have the right to their private sex lives while being acknowledged in public as sexual beings.  

This is almost a side note to this post, but I’m unsure of where else to put it in the blog. Califia asks the reader to question the borders between “public” and “private”. While presented something of a dichotomy, they are never entirely separate. The borders are constantly blurred when we consider semi-private spaces, such as motel rooms, secluded areas of parks, camping sites or public bathrooms. “Intimate” or private activities often take place such as sleeping, eating, showering and talking with loved ones in these semi-private spheres. The lack of the distinction between multiple spheres blurs the borders between public and private, making us question what activities belong in which category. When we don’t have an answer or placement for each activity, we begin to understand the blurredness of Califia’s arguments. While he is an advocate for both public and private sexualities, he does question their distinction and presentation as a dichotomy.

Women and children first: protection from the obscene

Hi world,

This is the first real post after the semester has ended, and I thought I would have lots to say about the world, the news it offers us, but thus far on winter break not much has been done in the way of work... whoops. I’ve been reading lots but the writing kind of took a dive. That’s going to change because I still have lots to say, and I’ve done lots of reading that needs commenting on. Perhaps most importantly, I need to finish this course so A can give me some kind of grade, so I can move onto hopefully another directed study, and keep the blog going for it. (Wouldn’t it be epic if I failed a directed study?) Anyway, I knew when I started to read Califia that we would continue to have words beyond the initial post because their work is so goddamn fantastic. The academic, rebellious and academically rebellious parts of me are all aflutter when I read Califia. The following is written about parts of the book “Public Sex: The culture of radical sex” , 1^st edition. (Full citation at the end of the post.)

In “Among Us, Against Us- The New Puritans: Does Equation of Pornography with Violence Add Up to Political Repression” (1980) Califia explores the definitions of “obscene” both as a broad concept and as it pertains to sex. If you’ve read any of this blog or have thought about obscenity at all beyond the word itself, you’ll likely recognize that it is an idea that is socially constructed. What we consider obscene changes constantly. (A brief aside: I’m going to continue on the premise that obscenity (and everything else) is socially constructed so I can get beyond just pointing and saying “social construct”.  If you don’t subscribe to social constructionists theories, you probably won’t agree with much of what is to come.  You may even rebuke it in the name of the lord. Not that I care. But if people can present the bible as fact, I can act as one of Califia’s disciples.)

Califia begins by telling the reader that as a child or young adult, adults were unwilling to tell him about sex other than a bland version of anatomical correct images. This, Califia, asserts was the least of what he wanted to know about sexuality. To him, interest lay in the anatomy of lust, pleasure and sensuality. He is able to bond together ideas that have previously been detached, challenging and question the obscene and definitions of sex. He connects masturbation and “lovemaking” (those are so not my words) in ways I’ve never previously heard of. Califia challenges what we consider to be “sex” when he considers masturbation and watching porn to be just as sexual as normative definitions of sex.  We are challenged by his suggestion- do we consider all sex obscene? Do we even have a solid definition of sex? Or have I been mistaking the words “sex” and “pleasure”? Califia wanted knowledge of passion, pleasure and lust- qualities which are perhaps not inherent in sex.  They may be connected, but are never synonymous.

Learning about sex is hard for a child to do, as Califia points out. Adults rarely take the time to converse with children about much beyond “this is how babies are made”, which is often rife with scientific and social inaccuracies. Regardless of the false information adults give their children, they often give them no information about pleasure, passion and everything that sex supposedly means, or at least sometimes comes with sex. I’m sensing Califa was never alone in his desire to know more about these subjects. The censorship that adults offered made it to a much higher level; Planned Parenthood outlined the legal definition in The Sex Code of California:

“Obscene matter means matter taken as a whole, the predominant appeal of which to the average person, applying contemporary standards, is to prurient interest, i.e. a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion: and is matter which taken as a whole goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters; and is matter which taken as a whole is utterly without redeeming social importance”  

Califia’s assessment of the definition makes it apparent that we are often without freedom of sexual speech.  Although this article is 30 years old, some of the examples and following arguments are still relevant.  At the time, however, Califia labelled one group as being one of the most influential; Women Against Violence in Pornography and the Media (WAVPM), a group that worked to enforce definitions and laws surrounding obscenity.  Their work is easily problematized; looking at their arguments makes me think they’re all bat shit crazy. They have endlessly broad definitions of violence and pornography, all of which they state are harmful to all women at all times in all of its forms.  Yet, it seems their perceptions of genders and sexes are very limited. When the broad definitions of violence and pornography (very few of which consider consent to be the most important factor in giving an act a label) are applied to what we’re being told about “men” and “women”, huge generalizations are made. (It is always two genders for WAVPM; I shudder to think of their trans politics.)

 Women and men are constantly presented within the dichotomy of “pure women” and “vile, lustful men”. The perpetuation of this stereotype means that women are constantly being viewed as a victim of men’s sexuality. Women are viewed as having no sexuality of their own, and any voluntary engagement in sexual acts is immediately questioned. For example, Califia states that WAVPM considers all women in sex work coerced but innocent at the hands of the ubiquitous man.  In an attempt to “free” women from prostitution, groups like WAVPM fail to take into account the many variables that each person faces. They don’t question what they can do to help sex workers that might make their jobs safer. Instead, they seek to destroy sex work all together and leave the scene before they can pick up the pieces.

Citation for book:

Califia, Pat. Public Sex: the culture of radical sex.  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania:  Cleis Press, Inc.  1994.

Life update

     I'm alive. And done exams. This is probably the worst attitude in the world to have, but all my mind can think right now is "thank god that's done". Part of me doesn't even care if I failed, wasted four months of my year and spent 1000$ doing it. I worked my ass of and I failed. But if I let myself think slightly negatively about it, it becomes a slippery slope, usually leading me to think about the worst things in the world. And then I have a panic attack. So we're just not going there now. Probably eventually. Just not now.
     So I'm keeping up with this blog over the break, and into next semester. Hopefully doing another directed study where I can keep this up. Otherwise it will likely just get lost in a sea of other projects I started and I've become oddly attached to this website, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure the only regular reader in the one who is marking me on this...(hi Ann!)
  A sign I should be in school for awhile longer: the period of "Yay! freedom! I can do anything I want!"  after an exam and before complete boredom sets in is about two or three hours. And yet... I managed to fuck up psychology like no one's business. Whatever. I'm looking into transfer programs... I may finally live my dream of being a student in Southern America. (No, not South America. I mean the American South; Alabama, Texas, Kentucky, Arizona. )
I'm not working on anything new right now, but will start something today. Possibly more Kincaid or Califia... not sure yet. I'm giving Curiouser another shot, and might try to work my way through the chapter on The Exorcist (the movie from the 70s, not one of the newer ones or the book). This means I'd have to watch the movie again and take notes. And the first time I saw it a few months ago, sleep was minimal for about four days after. So if I start writing a post and then part way through, it appears as though I cried and ran away, it's most likely I watched the Exorcist alone again.

With all the reading I've done this week, why am I posting about TV? Version 2.0

I'm procrastinating. It's pretty much what I do best. But I had to write about this, and it's something just thrown together, not from a word document. If you know me, you know I'm secretly addicted to TLC shows and specials, particularly the ones involving drugs, medicine, operations, prisons, addiction of any kind or bodies. And possibly some of the one's about food. So when I saw that there was a new special about a boy with 8 limbs on last night, I was pumped to watch it. I justified this by saying I was going to write about it for the blog, and continued to study while it was on. It's also no secret that part of the reason I love watching these shows is because I hate them so much. I usually disagree with what they're saying, getting annoyed and often yelling at the TV. This show was no exception.
A six year old boy was born with a "parasitic twin", growing from his abdomen in the form of legs, arms, a butt and possibly a penis, as well as a large hernia. The entire tone of the show was about "saving" this "poor boy in India", and we were supposed to think the family members who didn't want to operate on the boy were crazy or uninformed about the miracles of modern medicine. And it's true, I did feel awful for the boy because medical people kept trying to touch his protruding limbs and he kept screaming, crying and trying to avoid being touched. No one seemed to be explaining to him why the doctors were trying to touch him, which is bound to be scary as hell for anyone. Eventually they just drugged him up when he kept squirming and crying so they could poke and prod as they pleased. I understand that sometimes this is necessary, but it just seemed like a case where they drugged a kid to shut him up, never telling him what was "wrong" with him. He was supposed to gather this for himself by the way people stared at him in public, or when other people tried to touch his twin, I guess.
He did get the surgery to remove the hernia and the twin. The limbs and the other external parts were removed as well as some other parts of the twin that were growing inside, like parts of a bowel, some body fat belonged to the twin. (They could tell by the way it grew, it wasn't attached internally to him.) Surgically, it looks like they did a beautiful job, the little boy was fine and even playing on a tricycle within a couple weeks. His parents cried and were so grateful that their son was fine and now "normal". I'm not completely stone cold; I can get that his parents wanted everything for their child including a safe surgery. But was it medically necessary? The show gave no indication that it altered his health in any way; the discourse used in the show was a very protectionist one. "We have to save this boy and make him normal", which says more about his life socially and culturally than it does medically.
The boy called his twin "his baby". I wonder if he took home some of the parts in jars. I know I would try to. Or at least demand to see them when I woke up. Did he have an emotional attachment to the limbs and body parts? I can imagine so... they were live body parts, very much a part of his life. They contained blood and fat, and were there for his entire life. I just hope he's happy when he's older about the decision his parents made for him.

be right back.

Hi blog,
I'm kind of taking a break from you for a moment while my mind swims in psychology, papers and other places. Posting is going to be minimal for the next 8 days, but it should pick up when I finish for the semester. Well it kind of has to. Or else I may fail.

The social construction of everything doesn't make some things any easier.

You know what? just don't even read this one.

I’ve been flipping through a book called Curiouser: on the queerness of children (Bruhm and Hurley, eds.) for the last few days and my writing about it is minimal, just a few sticky notes and book marks. Maybe because it’s the end of the semester but my brain has kind of checked out of this whole school deal weeks ago. Still, I’m aiming for this post to be what I don’t do a lot of, regurgitation of someone’s arguments more than writing about their work. Not a fan of doing this... but it was kind of hinted at in the last meeting I had about this directed study that I should do a little more of that. By which I mean A told me “do more of this” and gave me a reading list. My god I love that she’s not subtle about her expectations of work. I swear some profs speak in code and laugh when you don’t figure it out in time. Like Jigsaw, but worse. It’s not just your life on the line; it’s your university grades. Now that I’ve gone drastically off topic because I’m typing while my mind is in 80 directions at once, I should probably just start.

Richard D Mohr writes an article called “The Pedophilia of Everyday Life”, which is about the representation of drugs and queer children in America. He argues that when they are presented together, they represent a message to the public and to smaller communities. The ad in question was that of a 12-14 year old boy with a very gender neutral appearance, his hair falling close to his eyes, one of which stares at the viewer, the other shadowed and distorted from the audience. He is about to do several lines of cocaine despite his young, almost pure image.  The caption below his face says “It used to be, at 13, little boys became interested in little girls”, implying several things according to our author. He views the ad with a perspective that drugs and queerness are new, distorted practices that children become “involved with”. He also suggests that by having them in the same ad, they are somehow connected in terms of social deviance and unacceptability. I can’t find the actual ad online, so I will put up a picture if it scans well.

It’s no secret that many Canadians generally believe that cocaine is dangerous and perhaps destructive to one’s social, physical, economical, psychological, etc. lives. Ultimately, being on coke, crack-cocaine or whatever this kid is about to do will make one’s life worse after they come down from his unbelievably fantastic high. I would say that this is a fairly reasonable and accepted statement. Perhaps due to our desire to view children as innocent and pure, we assume street drugs should have nothing to do with children. I’m not advocating pre-schoolers to have 17 bags of crack in their shoes, but why cocaine and homosexuality? What do they have to do with each other? We’re given few statements in this ad. This child is probably queer. This child is about to do a few lines of cocaine. Queerness and street drugs are related, because they are not what they used to be. Did the makers of this ad expect us to get sentimental and nostalgic about the good old days when people didn’t do drugs and kids were supposedly always and inherently heterosexual, heteronormative or even just “not queer”? Mohr argues that the representation of sexuality, gender and drug use in this advertisement are used to mutually demonize each other, making us question the practices of children and all gender-queer people. They are no longer just queer, but are a threat to what we see as “normal” and “healthy” as they become involved with drugs.    

I've heard this more than twice today...

When I hear someone say “The Africans” in class, it makes me cringe and I become a little bit scared at what is going to come out of the speaker’s mouth next.

Pregnancy test

*I don't feel the need to justify my desire to be pregnant and give someone a child on this blog, so I'm not posting about that. This is about something else. I may go to that subject later, but who knows?*
I have this thing where heterosexual sex scares and disgusts the bah-jeebus out of me. Like, I know some people like it, but I'm kind of terrified of the whole penis thing. (Or hole-penis thing. Ha.) But I want, at some point, to be pregnant and I'm looking into surrogacy. It's something I've wanted to do for a long time, and now that I'm not 17, it's really something I can consider. So tonight I've been looking at surrogate information in Canada and even looked at the "official" application. Wow. Some of the assumptions that are made make me want to write a paper about it... or at least throw down a few point the blog, even though I'm working on another post. Looking at the information was supposed to just be a break, but there's a reason "Marianne has no attention span" has its own label. So, let's go, shall we? You can view the actual application here. 
Would I be willing to be a surrogate for a Jewish couple? A non-Caucasian couple? A same-sex couple? Umm, alright, this is just awkward. Are they assuming I'm white, non-Jewish and straight? Well, they're 2 for 3, but that's not the point. What if I weren't? This is when it gets awkward. Do you approach that in the application? I'm guessing you can't get indignant on their asses if you actually want to be a surrogate. Are we assuming that non-Caucasian and Jewish people are inherently unfit parents? Do people actually check "no" to these questions? Do people wanting to be surrogates think "I'd love to do this for a couple or a person. But not if they're Jewish.". What would the person reviewing the application think? They've probably seen it all, but still. Are they assuming that everyone applying is white, non-Jewish and (probably) straight? Or are these the "desirable" surrogates? Do I really want to know the answer to these?
Also, they keep asking me about my partner or husband, and assume I've already had at least one pregnancy. Which is something they actually look for in an applicant- someone who has had kids before. Not entirely sure why, but I'm not going to deconstruct it or rant about it, in the hopes that there is some actual reason for this. I wonder how much not having a partner or previous pregnancies will impact this process should I decide to attempt it soon. I'm sure the application will change in the next few years, so if I decide to wait a few years, the info they want might change. I'm hoping being young, single, queer and never having experienced a pregnancy won't be strikes against me, but they very well might be.

Pillar-of-the-community pedophilia

Kincaid mentions several times throughout his book what North America is both intrigued and disgusted by: “teacher sex scandals”. They’re all over the news, and frankly I can think of a few stories that never hit the news but occurred while my friends and I fought through high school. Sometimes they become old news fast, but the public is willing to hang onto a few stories now and then to demonstrate its “moral” stance of the situation.

I’m choosing to write about separate chapter of his book Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting than I did with my last Kincaid post. Under the heading “teacher sex scandals”, he presents some thoughts about the labelling of a child molester. He argues that the public is quick to both expect high moral standing from teachers at the same time that we show almost no hesitation when it comes to condemning them in court.  He suggests that perhaps this is because while teachers interacts with children for most of their day and are expected to be kind, they are also expected to maintain a professional, official image. They can be liked by students, but not too much. As a result of these expectations, teachers may be labelled “pillar-of-the-community pedophile or molester”, if they should engage in sexual acts with a student.

 The public is both fascinated and disgusted with these stories; rarely are these sexual interactions presented with the discourse of a relationship. They are presented as an adult manipulating and coercing a child into dirty, sinful acts. We are shocked because these people are supposed to both protect and teach our children at the same time as they are expected to supervise and discipline when things get out of hand.  When teachers don’t fulfill these expectations, they are subject to ridicule, discipline and social judgement by the public and their employers.

Kincaid states that we don’t question our line of thinking when it comes to the above narrative, that because it suits our needs of both fascination and repulsion, we don’t need to change it. News stories both glamorizing and admonishing the student-teacher sexual interaction fit the purpose of the news; to inform, entertain and shock the public with up to date events.  We are expected to feel shock, anger and disgust by these stories, partly because of the way that they are presented. As valuable members of society, teachers who breech codes of conduct become labelled as “professional pedophiles” or as mentioned above “pillar-of-the-community” pedophiles/molesters. But the particular ways in which the sexual interactions are presented to the public have much to do with how they are perceived. Never are the interactions between student-teacher portrayed as an egalitarian relationship, based on sameness of interests and equal attraction. They are most often represented as an exploitive and dangerous relationship, one in which children were lured into, where they were then used and abused by the wicked Pedophile/Child Molester. No one has names at this point, rather they are popularly thought of as “victim” and “predator” in the public’s eyes.

Are these perceptions remotely accurate in some cases? Probably not, much of it is likely plausible fiction in which it was assumed that the teacher had all the power in the world and the student was some helpless lamb in an evil world. Students aren’t dumb or asexual. We’re attracted to people older than us and our teachers sometimes. It happens and usually nothing is said or done about it and it’s no big deal. But the student who acts on it with a teacher is most likely not completely stupid. Despite who initiated what, student-teacher sex will always come back to bite the teacher in the ass, not the kid. It doesn’t matter if the student flaunted, flirted and charmed his/her way into the situation, the reality is that legally and socially, the teacher is in danger of losing their job and social lives. For someone who was supposed to be helpless, this sure places a lot of power in a student’s hand. On days that I feel particularly soulless, I figure a lot of students might try this; sleep with a teacher to get what you want and then manipulate the situation to fit your needs. But I have no soul or heart, so my assumptions that other people think this way are probably overestimated. No matter if they claim to be in love, the minute the student decides they’re unhappy is the minute the teacher better start watching their back for new legal and social recourse.

"Pornography store. I was buying pornography"

  The title of this has nothing to do with anything. So when I'm at a loss, I usually just quote the Simpsons.

Well shit, dude.  How dare people tell Califia they are acting out....infantalization is hurtful and rarely helps to solidify the opposing sides’ argument. “I believed that if adults would listen, children were capable of telling us what kind of attention they wanted or when something harmful had happened to them” (page 55 of Public Sex).

Califia knows how to do statistics effectively, I can already tell. He gives a year, and the facts and his own reflections on it instead of merely listing stats that are really not helping their argument (sorry again, Levine). Mass produced and purchased child pornography was not as common as the moral panic would suggest. The panic brought the public’s eye away from possibly the most commonly harmful institution- the nuclear family. No need to go over specific numbers, but it’s well known now that children are/were much more likely to be sexually abused by someone they know/knew than to be involved with a child pornographer.

People between the ages of 12 and 18 are most likely not asexual. Having the age of consent laws set at 18, Califia argues we make adolescents vulnerable to exploitation, but at the same time, deny them their sexuality. Abstinence only sex education continues to be rampant in America, despite the rate at which teens are sexually active. More teens are sexually active than know about proper forms of birth control and contraceptives. Ill informed youth are obviously not benefitting from their lack of education. Abstinence only sex education is especially harmful when it is commonly known that the group of teens being educated is already sexually active. Not to make light of the situation, but too little too late, much? What concerns me is that abstinence only sex education is most often based on a set of morals, not health or (forgive me for saying this), science and biology. Abstinence education is most often preached, not taught, and when kids lack fundamental understanding of their own biology, unintended pregnancies occur at staggering rates.  

When they don’t understand “the parts” and their functions, how the hell can we expect them to make decisions about sex? They can and have to make conscience choices about sex, regardless of the form of sex education. Why not be honest about it, treat teens as adults and sexual beings? It’s already been proved over and over that pretending sex doesn’t exist or telling youth “just don’t do it. Wait until marriage, until God approves” way of educating youth does not work. Pregnancies, STDs, abortion and everything else the self-righteous right-wing-nuts fear happen regardless of the message sent to youth. And as I implied above, the abstinence only message most often comes from some sort of Christian point of view. This wouldn’t bother me if it were in their church; church is kind of one of those more optional things. If you don’t like the one you’re in, find another one or decide it’s not for you. You can’t do that with public schools with ease; there’s no school hopping if you don’t like the teachers or some stupid rule the administration has put in place, and social services tends to frown upon parents allowing kids to just opt out of school altogether. (Up to a certain age, then the youth is on his/her own. Which makes sense, but that’s another entry.) Christianity or God have no place in a public school that claims to treat everyone the same. If students or their parents don’t want youth knowing the facts of biology, they should be given the opportunity to opt of the classes, but schools should have no right to push a set of religious values on its students.  Youth shouldn’t have to change where they go to school (which isn’t easy for multiple reasons) because they aren’t getting taught the facts about sex.

That’s right, Peter, I said it. The facts, the truth, the real and actual biological function of what happens within the body should be heard by the students who are willing to listen. Telling them how eggs and sperm move, or how sperm are produced and the function of the fallopian tubes will not make kids have sex or encourage them to do so. Biology class or even “sex education” isn’t an instruction manual teaching kids how to have sex.  (Can you imagine? “So that’s where that goes?! And just how do you think it’s going to... oh. I see now.” Or “You’re doing it wrong! Refer to figure 4.23 in the book and try again. Never mind, I’ll do it myself. ”)  

This is what happens when you cross a Catholic raised girl with women's studies

Forgive me, Women’s Studies, for I have sinned. I never thought the day would come when I began to sympathize with the kid from Jesus Camp. Rachel is this little girl who is simultaneously cute and creepy as fuck as she tries to convert strangers to Christianity in the bowling alley (forward to around 8:00 to see the part I’m talking about). I fear I have become to think like her, Women’s Studies, and this scares me greatly. Not because I’ve suddenly found the evangelical lord that Rachel loves, but because some of my thinking habits are not unlike to hers.

I find myself screaming in my head or on paper about social constructionism. I get so frustrated in psychology classes, having to regurgitate this stuff about pathways, neurobiology and metabolisms, when it’s all just social construction. These ideas are not solid facts, they’re stories we tell ourselves as scientists. They’ve created, constructed and moulded this particular line of thinking into facts of the human mind and behaviour. If someone else had gotten there first, it could have been a completely different discourse; another understanding of biology entirely. Nothing is a fact, nothing is natural. Grass might be green, but that’s only because someone decided what grass is and how green looks.

How is this like Rachel? Because we’re both naive, but also determined and stubborn in our own point of view.  She’s convinced of her lord, god and saviour, and just wishes people could think the way she does, and find their love for god. I don’t think we have the same desire to convert others even though I’ve labelled everything around me a social construction; unreal objects with pointless definition and meaning. I know and acknowledge that there are millions of other points of view, some of which should be considered, but secretly, I think I’m right.

Maybe I'm wrong- You do the math.

    When I started this blog, I thought I would write a lot about “pedophilia” and/or intergenerational sex, but as time creeps on, it occurs to me that I’ve barely addressed it.  I’ve continuously shied away from it, pretending that I didn’t know how many definitions of pedophilia were out there, deliberately trying to ignore statistics that Levine and other authors insist on establishing in every chapter. And I just can’t deal with stats for a few reasons:

    I don’t think they represent enough information. Numbers are someone else’s area, not for this women’s studies student. I can’t hop on board with quantitative research and without feeling like something is missing; I want to learn and question the definitions given, not plot them on a graph. That’s just not a part of what I think women’s studies is.

   Whose statistics can I (we?) trust? Unless we have universal terms and understandings of each category, no one’s math is going to match. If we rely on math to tell the story of human behaviour, we need to decide on the “right equation” before we present the findings as some sort of fact. But we’re far from there, and that’s ok. It’s alright to have fluid, changing and interacting definitions of categories and identities. 

I don’t like math.

   The constant use of statistics when debating a social issue seems cowardly and childish. Everyone knows there are numbers; our society values math and science more than they ever will the humanities and arts, but would it kill people to come up with an argument that didn’t rely solely on statistics, demographics, graphs and numbers?  Do they fear the real world? Do they fear that when they creep out from underneath their calculators and computer screens, there will be this shocking real 3-Dimensial universe? One filled with inequalities, social problems and things that can’t be solved with a mathematical formula? When it comes to the issue of child abuse, molestation and pedophilia, what will the statistics do for anyone? Telling a parent, or anyone, that there’s really not as high of a percentage of child molesters as they might have thought isn’t that comforting. In fact, it kind of makes you look like a jerk. Presenting stat after stat in a book in an attempt to convince people we’re being too hyperbolic about protecting kids from sex fails to make the impact the author wanted to make. Levine, I’m looking at you.  

   When they present the “facts and stats” as some kind of reassurance for parents, it’s most likely ineffective. Are you trying to make us less afraid of the “pedophile”, “the abuser” or other monstrous characters we have constructed? Numbers don’t do that, fool.

“I’m hesitant to give my kids more freedom, even though they’re responsible and we’ve known this area for years” says parent.

“Yeah, and statistically speaking, your kids are much more likely to be abused by your partner, or your parents. 7405 out of 210593 sexual assaults of children take place by someone the child knows[1]” says the not so helpful statistician to the concerned parent and public.

I’m not saying there’s no use for math in social debates, but using it as your primary source is weak. Numbers prove very little, if anything at all within certain contexts. The answer to “how has contemporary society constructed, both legally and socially, the pedophile?” is not 7.

This wasn’t supposed to turn into a rant, and I fear I broke that promise about 3 paragraphs back. This was supposed to be a logical argument, but somehow my mind ran out of steam and basically decided to yell at Judith Levine for making her awesome-sounding book boring and better fit for a person who cares more about numbers. I just wanted to tell her that numbers are great, but they do nothing for someone who is trying to deconstruct the profile we have given to pedophiles in contemporary North America.  Stats even hinder the process by creating panic, because number's seem to be something people can hang onto, that they will believe. Math doesn't lie, but if we don't know the equations, we have to question the answers statistics provides for us.

[1] Note: This is not a “factual” statistic.

---

Hardly bedtime stories: what we tell kids about sex

Somehow I don’t think lists and Billy Joel lyrics constitute an academic post (someone correct me if I’m wrong). So I thought I would just post a little about what I have been reading lately. Mainly I’ve been into these two books (that I constantly mix up in my head). One is called Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine and the other is James Kincaid’s Erotic Innocence: The Culture of Child Molesting.

I thought I would really like Levine’s book, but it’s hard to get through, because she presents a lot of stats through the entire thing. Yeah, I think math is important (okay, maybe I don’t), but for some reason I think she’s hiding behind her numbers. She will tell the reader that one “well known” statistic is wrong, and presents another. No offense to Levine, but I’m hardly going to find her stats more convincing because they’re under the title of her book than the ones that are presented by anyone else. I’m just going to kind of leave her hanging for this post. For some reason, I feel compelled to tell the world that I am doing more work on this thing than it appears.

I can handle Kincaid and his arguments a little easier. His chapter called “Myths of Protection, Acts of Exposure” is a good read. He throws some stats around, but there’s something about his arguments that seems to have more substance than numbers do. Plus I think he likes lists. I LOVE lists (when I was younger I started my journal at both ends. Front to back was where I wrote and stuff, back to front was lists. That was trivia you didn’t need to know.) One of the lists he composes is titled the same as the chapter “Myths of Protection”.

In this chapter he explores how the protection of children from the ubiquitous monstrous child molester is every bit as hyperbolic as the notion of the monster itself that we present to children and parents. (If he does a list, so I’m allowed to, too. )

1.  Censorship, whether it is blocking sites on the internet, through book banning, rating movies and TV shows, or only putting the R rated media on late at night, we censor it all. He states this as fact, which, to his credit, it is. The enforcement of these rules is hardly consistent, and who eventually gets the final word on what kids see or hear?

It depends on the kids and how “supervised” they are. Are we really protecting kids from anything by telling them they can’t watch certain movies or play particular games? Once again, I have no idea, but the censorship thing isn’t working so well. Kids still see things “meant for adults”, and the results are yet to be seen because they’re still kids. But I doubt it will mould them into psychopaths. I’m not saying you should pop in a porn video for your 6 and 11 year old kids to watch, but hearing and seeing the censored things might make them less exciting. If people actually took the time to explain why they aren’t allowed to see or hear something, kids might not be so persistent on seeing it. (There’s a story about an Ouija board in here. And the Exorcist. Those are the only two things I can remember that Ma was insistent on censoring. Now I know why.)

The only way to really effectively censor something is to make it nonexistent for everyone. That is just not going to happen; adults want their porn; teens want their slasher-flicks; and I want to watch documentaries containing real medical procedures that may be considered graphic to some viewers.

I guess I’m no farther ahead than Kincaid was at the end of his first point on the list, but at least I tried, questioning the point of censoring media from kids. Censorship #*%!ing sucks.

2.  His second point is about a program for teens called “Sex Respect”, which was an abstinence only sex-education program in America. It made little impact on teen’s behaviour. This is still true in America where abstinence only is promoted as the only sex-education tool; kids/teens still have sex, but they no longer have the resources or accurate information to make their own choices. It’s these kind of programs that tell kids they can get AIDS from kissing (no, I’m not joking), that pure, good, non-hell-bound people wait until they are married into heteronormative bliss to have sex.  

These tactics don’t work! That’s been proven time and time again each time a different state tries to give it a go. A lot of the arguments have to do with G/god, which will hardly make a different to the large groups of teens who have predominantly secular attitudes. If they don’t believe in G/god(s), how is preaching going to help make the point that “sex is bad unless you’re married”?

Also, they made buttons and shirts with hilarious sayings such as “Do the right thing and wait for the ring!” and “Don’t be a louse, wait for your spouse!” I imagine these are in neon colours and oversized, to be worn with acid washed jeans.

3.  He looks at a number of things children are taught as a protection such as “good-touch” versus “bad touch”, and what secrets are harmful, or what to do if someone touches them in a way that “makes them feel bad or upset”. Kincaid is critical of these lessons, stating that children are most likely to be confused by the ambiguity of the statements. They probably will be, but I really disagree with him if he is suggesting that children shouldn’t know about abuse and abusers. He questions censorship, but doesn’t want children to be informed about what abuse might consist of, what abuse might make them feel like. That is more than contradictory.

Kids should know that they have someone to tell if they’re being treated in ways that don’t make them feel safe, and that no one should make them feel that way. “That way” meaning unsafe, upset, hurt or dirty. Explaining this to a four year old is easier said than done, and like censorship, it’s up to supposed to be parents to decide how/if they want their young kids to know about mature topics.

Kincaid has five more points on this list, but a few of them are somewhat irrelevant (outdated, and very locally specific ideas) so I won’t go over them. Some of them are ideas that deserve posts of their own, because they strongly relate to other books and articles I’ve read recently. I’m not done with Kincaid’s book yet so there will be more posts about his work.

Real life moments: You said that in public?! (part 2)

So when I said that this was going to be a two part post, I meant I would post some more about space and sexuality. It occurred to me this morning that the last post was pretty much all I understand/ “get” about the whole sexuality and space thing.  Public and private spaces are fluid; constantly changing.  That what goes on “spaces” is often performance. And now I’m pretty much just drawing a blank, making this two part post really unnecessary. So I leave you with a list

Things that can transform from “private” to “public” in an instant:

Adopting a lot of cats.... hoarding animals.

Rolling a cigarette... meth lab explosion.

Taking drugs... ending up in rehab.

Being grounded by your parents... going to jail.

Sex in your home... arrested for prostitution.

Drawing in your notebook... having your work in a gallery.

Writing a journal... having it read...and/or published.  

Also, here are some relevant Billy Joel for your reading pleasure:

Well we all have a face
That we hide away forever
And we take them out and
Show ourselves
When everyone has gone
Some are satin some are steel
Some are silk and some are leather
They're the faces of the stranger
But we love to try them on

-The Stranger

Real life moments: You said that in public?! (part 1)

This week in sex and culture, we're talking about sex, sexuality and space. In some of the readings, the value of privacy came up. The authors (and the class) attempted to dissect public and private spaces, coming to the general conclusion that if it is in your home, it tends to be private. But if you start doing something illegal or "immoral" all of this can quickly change, where certain, if not all, aspects of your life are suddenly manufactured for public use; subject to scrutiny by anyone and everyone. What/where qualifies as public or private? I'll be honest and say I actually don't know... this is pretty much the first day that my mind didn't go "WTF" when we talked about sexuality, gender (and other identities) and space.

This is all to say that if incredibly stupid things are said in public and I hear them (ok fine, I'm more likely to be saying them), they're pretty much fair game for the blog. But I don't/won't post private conversations unless I have permission. No need to make any more enemies.
So I will have a post tomorrow about fucked up statement(s) said publicly. For now I need to be studying for this test that might, in all honesty, give me a heart attack before I even get around to posting it.*


 *In the event that this happens, I have most of the post written in my developmental psych notebook, you can read it there. The rest are on CSI Sidle's hard drive and in my sex and culture notebook. After death a lot of that stuff becomes public space...hey, that might be a good post in itself. How did I even come to talk about this? It's fairly cocky of myself to assume someone would give a shit about the thoughts that come out of my mind and onto paper or screen in the event that psychology kills me.

With all the reading I've done this week, why am I posting about TV?

Maybe I'm biased. Maybe it's because I love androgyny and/or butchness in a woman, but this episode of What Not to Wear is driving me insane. This woman, Annie, is not feminine, she doesn't feel it, wear it, or act it in any conventional sense of the word. She owns this, she says this (so I'm not throwing words in her mouth), and she's fucking beautiful. This is a typical episode, but they throw out her clothing (regardless of whether or not it fits and looks good!) if it's from the "men's" side of the store. It's clothing, people! I thought they were of the "looks good on you, you're comfortable in it, good to go" camp. They're normally so, "dress for the body you have, and life you live". But Stacy and Clinton just keep taking away her gender expression, telling her that she needs to get out of the men's clothing to look professional. Stop robbing her of her identity, you assholes. She's clearly shit-terrified but they get her in the dress. Obviously self-identity and outward expression are important to this woman; they're important to all of us, but let her deal in her way- not by telling her butch is out of style. Damn it Stacy and Clinton, if you stop taking away all the butchness a sense of style, self and maybe even gender will be suppressed. More importantly, I won't have anyone to date.

Fuck you/Real life moments: response to a real comment made in psych class

If I ever have a child who is diagnosed with Down syndrome, and someone asks me if I'm going to "try again" for a "second chance", they will receive a roundhouse kick to the face while getting an earful. *

This is going to be short, because I have a paper to finish tonight, but this is a response to a comment I heard in developmental psychology. In university. Where people are supposed to think. Do people think anymore, or was that just like a passing fad?
I shouldn't have to do this, but I'm going to because I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. Why would anyone say this to a parent or even at all?!By the opening paragraph people might get the idea that I would be offended as a parent if this were to happen. And if I were a parent, I would be, but for now I'm pissed off at this line of thinking because I'm human. I'm shocked and saddened that people think that babies/anyone with Down syndrome are somehow less of people than people without Down syndrome.
Asking if someone is going to "try again" for "a second chance" sounds like they have been trying to get pregnant but have not been successful with actually doing so. This is not something you say about a child with Down syndrome or any child; these children aren't somehow failures. They are human beings, but these kinds of comments dismiss this fact even if the person didn't mean it that way. It's just a horrible and mean thing to say, suggesting that a child isn't good enough- for any reason! And considering people replaceable, interchangeable and even disposable makes the future look bleak at best. 
What if people who think this way have children with Down syndrome? Being the child of someone who thinks this way must be hard. Do the children constantly wonder what it was about the older children that made their parents "try again"? How would these assholes introduce their children? "This is Dylan. He has Down syndrome, so he doesn't count. We tried again, so this is our second chance, Bethany." That's just fucked up.

This thought quickly lead to abortion in my mind and there's more opinions than people out there, so I'll just throw mine out there. I think pregnant persons should have the right to abort an embryo or fetus if that's what they choose. But getting pregnant, finding out the child will have Down syndrome and aborting the child based on this knowledge, with the intent to conceive a child who doesn't have Down syndrome shortly after? That kind of weirds me out, and I think it's because when people do that, they are saying that the child with Down synodrome just wasn't good enough for them. These are the people who one can say are "trying again" for a "second chance".

*I reserve the right to react this way in the event that someone makes these comments about other people's children

"Boxes"

This post started out as something entirely different. I just started typing one night, and it became more of a journal entry than anything else. The majority of it didn’t make its way to the blog, because it just got really messed up where someone else would probably have to be inside my brain to understand what the hell I was talking about. So these are the more coherent parts of that day. Please keep in mind that yes, I am aware of what an egocentric, selfish piece of writing this is.

I think I feel compelled to at least pretend I like one gender, one sex or any gender or any sex to feel socially acceptable. No one believes the asexual person exists. I think people would easier believe that I have some kind of supposedly “perverted” fetish rather than accept that there’s a strong possibility that I may just be asexual. Another perspective... I’m bisexual- repelled by all sexes, all genders. But by god, I better find a label, a box, an identity quick. (I feel like its playing musical chairs or something, and everyone sits down in their space while I’m standing there, wide-eyed and thinking “oh shit”. Everyone has their label but me; I’m just kind of floating here.)

Society is pretty damn insistent on putting us in multiple boxes, demanding that we check male or female; man or woman; single, divorced, married or common-law; straight, gay, (bisexual and/or queer if you’re really lucky to find that on paperwork). And it’s not just our families, friends and partners that want to know this stuff, it’s every single god damn form ever filled out. Banks, school, doctor’s offices, surveys, driver’s license, birth certificate, health cards, insurance information, tax forms, job applications, scholarship and awards committees, blood and organ donor information, flu shot forms, and passport officials, just to name a few, demand to know what our genitals look like. I’m going to assume that this is not vital information to any of these people. Possibly your doctor, but it’s really bizarre for other people to need to know what we look like naked, in order to obtain a license or get into school. Why even bother with the boxes and demands to know about other people’s bodies on something that is so clearly not even a little bit related to sex? I’d say “just ignore the box”, but most places won’t let you do that, you must label yourself or be labelled. And so often it’s just two measly choices. Male or female; you must pick one or the other. There is pressure there, but I think that it would be better if we recognized that gender and sex are different things entirely. People wouldn’t demand to know our sex on forms if we just eliminated that part of the form. But then we’re still left with gender. Is that anyone’s business? I’d say it’s more likely than sex to be relevant to everyday life -what gender you identify with (if any) brings social definition to your life and interaction with others. (That doesn’t mean people have the right or privilege to make it their business.) We’ve constructed gender as being a prominent identity in our society, and getting rid of it entirely won’t happen. Some people even like identifying with a gender, but I do wish we could casually opt out of the gendered society without repercussions from our peers and institutions we rely on. I wish we could disconnect the correlation society made between sex and gender. Instead of making more and more boxes to “accommodate” to those who don’t fit in the two given, we could disassemble the boxes entirely.

Fuck you moments: pregnancy tests

Here’s something that pisses me off: Clear-Blue pregnancy test commercials. They’re the one with the feature that tell you roughly how long you’ve been pregnant in weeks. At the end, the woman says “the only thing it can’t tell is whether it’s a boy or girl”. Are you fucking kidding me, lady? Here are some reasons I think you're annoying:

1.  Why is the only question that comes to mind when you discover you’re pregnant? To me, it sounds like this woman is using her kid’s sex to determine its future.

2.  She uses the terms “boy” and “girl”. Gender is constructed and is hardly something one can predict when they’re six weeks pregnant. The terms “male” and “female” are more appropriate. If you don’t like the way it sounds in the commercial, leave that stupid bit out.

3.  Are we assuming that we will know something about the kid if we do find out the probable sex?

4.  The test can’t tell you if your kid is healthy, or if it’s going to have blue eyes, if it’s going to be a schizophrenic genius who will plot to kill you when it turns nine. The test can’t tell you who the father is.  It can’t tell you if there are multiple things growing in your womb.  

5.  There are more than two sexes, there are even more genders. Stop trying to shove your binary down my throat.

No doubt there's more, but this was just a distraction from psychology for a few minutes. I'll be posting tonight or tomorrow about sexuality, bodies, language... that could hardly be more vague if I tried. .

  

general life rules: think before you speak.

It makes me wonder what kind of state the world is in if we have to have pamphlets and training to tell us that asking about a stranger's genitals is rude and invasive.

Discourses of age and sex

[Normally I hesitate to read books labelled as “philosophy” after I completely bombed contemporary moral issues in first year. Sometimes (mostly in science/math courses) I get annoyed at the world in general when I fail again and again after working my ass off. This was the exact opposite of that. This was like straight-up my own lack of common sense and basic school skills that awarded me a 13 percent on a test. The other marks weren’t great, either; it may have been the only time I’ve failed a paper. I don’t know; I never got it back. I’m not entirely sure why I’m making this introduction a confessional about my dumb-assery, but it might be used as a statement to say that I am not a philosopher by any stretch of the imagination.]

Despite my hesitation, I stumbled upon a philosophy book in the library called Ethics and Sex by Igor Primoratz. I’ll admit that chapter ten is the only chapter I’ve really read, not just skimmed. Simply titled “Pedophilia”, he explores a great deal in eleven pages. He’s one of those authors that I’ll likely keep looking at, because his arguments are so basic and understandable and his work has kind of kept me in check when I’m reading different authors. But the argument I’m going to explore for now is his ideas about discourse.

Discourse is the language we use and the ways we talk about particular practices or institutions. Our uses of language as well as our ways of understanding and knowing about a particular identity (for example) help to make up discourse. Talk is never “just talk”, but is supported and regulated by dominant perspectives and social structures such medicine or law. Our use of language shapes the way we see and understand the world. People can understand our perspectives better when they consider the language we use.  

Although Primoratz doesn’t use the term discourse to describe his opening to the chapter, he engages in the definitions of discourse I describe above. He begins by distinguishing in detail the labels or identities of pederasty, ephebophilia and pedophilia. He challenges contemporary use and understanding of these terms by outlining the differences between them. (I’m only going to look at pederasty, ephebophilia and the notion of an age of consent in this post. I had originally planned to dissect his understanding of pedophilia in detail in this post, but I let the following paragraphs get out of control, so pedophilia will have its own post.)

Pederasty, he states, is defined by the sexual attraction if an adult male to boys in their mid-teens. He gives the perpetually used example of ancient Greece, where it was common for grown men and still androgynous boys to have lustful relationships. He labels this interaction as “homosexuality”, but I’m going to question whether or not homosexuality is the right term for this example. Ancient Greece didn’t have the term homosexuality, and maybe didn’t even have the concept of categorizing sexualities by attraction to a particular sex or gender. So can we label something that wasn’t there? If they had a technology that had many of the same functions of a calculator, we wouldn’t call it a calculator because that is misplacing modernity into a historical context. Why should it be any different with sexualities? I’m not saying we shouldn’t have the labels “homosexuality” or “pederasty” to describe particular kinds of ancient relationships, but we should constantly be aware that these are modern terms placed in another context. We should acknowledge that the relationships between practices and identities are often constructed through time, context and space. The terms “homosexual” and “heterosexual are new terms, only appearing within medical discourse within the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries and since then their definitions have evolved.    Men and teenage boys having consensual sexual relationships doesn’t become homosexuality until we label and define it as such.

Ephebophilia is described by Primoratz as the attraction of grown men to “vigorous maleness” in young adults. He argues that technically we can label this practice pedophilia of we have a wide enough definition of the term, as it includes grown men with a sexual desire towards “minor” children. Of course, this understanding is only possible if we construct an “age of consent” rule. Like most identities, age is socially constructed. Not only is it constructed through the somewhat arbitrary decision of what constitutes a year and therefore our numerical age, but age is especially structured within legal discourses. Ephebophilia cannot exist without our understanding of “underage” and “adult”, something which changes through history.

“Age of consent” is a large topic in and of itself, and I intend to do posts solely devoted to it. For now I think it suffices to say that age of consent is nothing natural, but it is shaped around our understanding of what age means. The concept of the child is a relatively new development. Historically, children were typically thought of as being smaller adults. Because “age of consent” laws are meant to protect children and children are historically, culturally and contextually specific, the legal discourses become even more open to debate. Laws are created for the public, the general wholeness of society, not for individuals. It doesn’t work with “exceptions” to the rules of what we deem right or wrong, but tries to maintain some kind of order to these values.

By creating a legal discourse about age and sexual experience, we tell ourselves a lot about what the (supposed) majority believes. Telling children they must be however old to have sex with someone above the age of majority is typically labelled as protection of children against pedophile monsters. Here are some quick facts just in case anyone wants to know numbers: the age of consent in Canada is 16; in America it ranges from 16 to 18. There are, however exceptions. If the 16 to 18 year old engages in sexual contact with someone over the age of 18 who is in a position of authority, then this is illegal. By creating these laws we are placing value on youth, childhood and possibly even innocence. We desire to protect the things we value. The arbitrary age we “permit” children to have sex is a structure that tells us about how we think people mature socially and physically. By creating an age of consent, we are telling ourselves this age defines children as being “developed” or “mature” enough to experience sex with someone over the age of 18. We typically understand physical acts of sexuality to be something reserved for people who are “ready” for the supposed responsibility of it.

Is it right for there to be laws identifying what is the appropriate age for individuals to engage in sex, and with whom? I have a hard time accepting age of consent laws when it goes against what society tries to tell us about sex. We’ve all heard that “sex is personal, intimate and between two people”. Maybe it is those things sometimes, but the fact is, sex is public. It’s regulated by laws, telling us who, when, where and why we have sex. “Sex is personal” becomes meaningless when we consider that we don’t necessarily have the control we thought we did around our sexuality. There are laws telling us we can’t have sex for money, or pay for sex and I’ve already gone into some detail about the “when” and “with whom” regulations with the age of consent laws.

We are getting mixed messages about sex. Popular culture and wedding industries (for example) tell us that sex and love coincide and are personal, private matters. This is at the same time that some states still have laws regarding sodomy in 2010. I wish the message was “sex is about consent”. The idea that “if there are willing, consenting people involved in a sex act, then it’s acceptable” seems a bit too simple, but sometimes that’s what applies to a situation.

You have to understand that I mean “willing” in a very fluid sense. Incredibly intoxicated people unable to consent are not willing partners. Small children are not consenting individuals. My grandmother can’t consent, but because of another situation entirely (and it has nothing to do with age). Consent and willingness has to be about something more than age. I’m not going to try to say that there aren’t young people who are manipulated into sexual relationships with older people, and that their “power” wasn’t abused. I just don’t think we should be able to pin down one age that says “this is when sex is acceptable”.

We’ve accepted in our society that with age brings power and authority, which is one of the main reasons there are age of consent laws. The point of the laws seems to be to protect younger people from experiencing power imbalances within a sexual experience. What they don’t consider, however, is the many other power imbalances that might take place inside a consenting relationship between two adults (I say two because our society seems to love monogamy). There are no laws considering the constructed inequalities that occur within class, race, nationality, gender or sex. For example, we don’t have laws telling women not to have sex with men because of the inequalities we have constructed around gender. Age is just as much a construction as other identities, and I think a lot more than numbers need to be considered when thinking about “acceptable” sex.

I really didn’t intend to go in the direction I did with this post, and my lack of ability to pay attention to my own writing is sometimes debilitating. (I had to be told to stop looking at videos of narcoleptic goats partway through writing this, if that gives you any insight as to how short my attention span is.) I had every intention to talk about Primoratz’s arguments about pedophilia and ethics. The good thing about a blog is that it will be here tomorrow, waiting for more things to be said. I will get to his definition of pedophilia and his critiques of our discourses surrounding it

I shouldn't be posting this, but it appears that I am

Peter was nice to me, but he scared me. I don’t want to slip him into a box and pretend that’s all he is, especially considering my desire for other people not to label me, but his homophobia scared me. Obviously there’s much more to him than “homophobe”, but the glimpse I saw of that identity upset me.

While we both agreed “homophobic” was often an inaccurate word to describe someone, and he didn’t identify as homophobic, I feel like most people would disagree. He said he wasn’t afraid of gay people; he didn’t have an unexplained phobia of homosexuals or bisexuals. Now, I’m not one to tell someone they’re something they don’t identify with, but in my mind and within the gay allied community, I would call him a homophobe. He doesn’t run away screaming when he sees gay or bisexual people, but he actively opposes to our right to be in schools and public as ourselves. 

He said our schools promote homosexuality by including it in our sex education programs and as part of our everyday curriculum. No, Peter, just no. Inclusion does not mean influence. They might give homosexuality a shout-out in some classes, but it’s always regarded as a “special interest”, or as an alternative to the norm. We’re thrown into a couple history lessons or someone mentions same-sex sexuality in sex education, and homosexuality is being “promoted”? That’s really not how that works. If the schools start encouraging children to attend same-sex orgies in the gym, that’s promotion. We’re not a fucking cult you self-righteous knob, we don’t have sign-up sheets in a secret lair somewhere.

Do you know what scares me about Peter? He’s the mostly kind, intelligent type of homophobic person. With people like the Westboro Baptist Church, most people accept them to be batshit crazy homophobes who hate literally everyone. And that makes them less dangerous in a way; they have no real influence within the general public. But Peter, and people I know who shared the same ideas of gayness stand a chance at harming opportunities for equality. He’s the type who will politely tell someone they are going to rot in hell, and present them with an argument as to why. The argument might even make sense if you believe in his god.  

The world just isn’t black and white; very seldom can something be labelled right or wrong without there being a list terms and conditions to its rightness or wrongness. I cannot for the  life of me see life in a binary, and I have a fairly useless analogy as to why this is, but I wrote it in the back of my notebook so I figured I would post it.

You know when you’re looking at an optical illusion, and you can’t understand it for the life of you? But then something clicks and you see it, and your mind can’t go back to not seeing it. Your brain can sometimes flip it back and forth between sides of the illusion until it eventually it becomes a blurry mess. Take that idea and throw it towards sexuality, gender, and anything else someone tells you is a binary. You thought there were two genders and two sexes, and that they were always perfectly aligned. But then you take women’s studies (this is the click) or step into the real world and see that this is not true. You begin to see that gender and sex don’t necessarily coincide and that they are not natural identities set in stone. You begin to understand the “illusion” set in front of you from multiple perspectives, shattering the idea that the image is only ever one thing. And if you begin to look at (deconstruct, examine, and analyze) gender for any amount of time, it becomes blurry and distorted. You give your head a shake, realizing that there are always multiple perspectives to any image, problem, illusion and identity and that it doesn’t hurt to question the world around you. Your brain becomes trained to deconstruct and think critically about identity and culture at all times .This is when you fall in love with women’s studies.

**I PROMISE the next post will be something someone with some kind of intelligence might post. It's going to be about definition, intergenerational sex and this really awesome book I've been reading. But now I have to study, so I copied and pasted this from a word document because life got in the way of blogging.**